Joseph Cable (Medal of Honor)

He fought through the winter campaign along the Yellowstone.

Joseph A. Cable was born at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1848 and entered the United States Army from Wisconsin. As a private in Company I, 5th Infantry, he served in the northern Plains campaigns of 1876 and 1877.

His Medal of Honor recognised gallantry in the engagements at Cedar Creek, Montana Territory, and during the subsequent winter operations between 21 October 1876 and 8 January 1877. These operations followed the Army's renewed campaign against the Lakota and their allies. The surviving citation honours his conduct across that period rather than describing a single isolated rescue.

Cable received the decoration in 1877 and was promoted to corporal. He remained with the regiment during its later campaign against the Nez Perce. Wounded in the fighting at Bear Paw Mountain, he died from his injuries on 15 October 1877.

His service thus ended within a year of the first engagement named in his citation. The award commemorated a young infantryman's conduct during a difficult winter campaign, before the wound that ended his military career.